Peace: How Jesus Puts Us Back Where We Belong, Pt 1

Introduction: Our Craving for Peace

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are the most common types of disorders in the US, affecting some 18.1% of the population each year, which translates into about 40 million Americans.[1] Closely connected to anxiety disorders is depression, with nearly one-half of those diagnosed with depression also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. But adults aren’t the only ones. Studies have been published in recent years confirming that our current generation of youth—Gen Z or “iGen” (those born after 1994)—are suffering from anxiety disorders and depression at a far higher rate than did the previous generation, the Millennials.[2] The worst hit, though, are teenage girls. From 2009 to 2014, teenage girls who were admitted to hospitals for self-harm rose 60% in both the US and the UK. We see this disturbing trend also reflected in a more tragic statistic, the rise of suicides in teenagers. In 2016, the suicide rate for teenage boys in the US was 34% higher than the previous decade, and girls’ suicide rates were up a massive 82%.[3]

These numbers are shocking and sad. Our hearts should break over what this reveals about the state of our country’s mental health, especially the mental health of our youth. Our hearts should break over all the things that have gone terribly wrong in people’s lives to lead to this heartrending situation. Unsurprisingly, it is precisely for mental health reasons that lots of people turn to religion. The American Psychological Association published a paper in 2010 detailing how that humans seem to be “more whole” when they factor the religious into their lives. This is because the research indicates that the biological, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual aspects of our humanity are all linked together.[4] Steven Reiss, a professor emeritus of psychology at Ohio State, released a book in 2016 entitled The 16 Strivings for God, in which he published his findings from years of research that all human beings operate with 16 basic desires, and that religion fulfills most all of them, over and over again. Interestingly, one of those basic desires is the desire for tranquility.[5]

What does all this say? It says that as human beings, we crave (and need) peace. We crave tranquility. We crave an inner calm and stability that enables us to face everything else that life throws at us. And, judging by the statistics, our pursuit of peace and tranquility only works part of the time. But a significant factor that plays into such pursuits is our religion—our faith. In the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, peace is one of the primary blessings offered to people by God through the gift of Jesus Himself. Jesus offers peace with God by virtue of His death for human sin, which then results in peace from God. And this peace does far more than give us inner tranquility. It does things to us. It equips us. It heals us. It renews and directs us. What we find when we look more closely at what Jesus means by the peace He gives is that His peace ultimately puts us back where we belong. Now, what this looks like and how it does this is exactly what I want us to talk about in this new series. I believe that the peace of Christ is one of the more underrated and seldom discussed aspects of Christianity. And, as far as our church goes, I want to change that with this series. To get started, I want us to look at an episode in the Gospel of Mark—the only episode, in fact, where Mark has anyone say anything at all about peace. So, let’s listen in.

[1] https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics. Accessed on 11/8/19. See also https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/diseases/depression-anxiety.html.

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/10/by-mollycoddling-our-children-were-fuelling-mental-illness-in-teenagers. Accessed on 11/8/19.

[3] Ibid.

[4] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/12/believe. Accessed on 11/8/19.

[5] https://phys.org/news/2015-10-psychology-religious-belief.html. Accessed on 11/8/19.

How Peace Came to An Outcast Woman

The story that we’re looking at today occurs in what interpreters call a “Markan sandwich.” By this, they mean one of Mark’s favorite storytelling devices where he inserts one story within another story with the intent of having both stories complement each other and give illumination to a single theme.[1] In this case, Mark “sandwiches” the story of a woman with a discharge of blood between two parts of a story about Jairus, a local synagogue ruler, and his dying, 12-year-old daughter.

According to , Jairus approaches Jesus as a large crowd gathers around Him. By social standing, Jairus is a ruler of a synagogue, which made him somewhat important in the area. But when he comes to Jesus, any air of importance falls to the ground as he falls at Jesus’ feet. All pretense is gone with Jairus. Whatever dignity or pride he might otherwise try to preserve was sacrificed for the sake of his daughter as he begs Jesus to save her life. He asks Jesus, “Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” Interestingly, that word “well” is the same word that is so frequently translated “saved,” or salvation, in the NT. It can mean “rescue” or “deliver,” or in this case, “wellness” from a sickness. So, he’s asking Jesus to come rescue, deliver, save, his daughter, so that she can live. And Jesus agrees to come.

On the way, however, the scene gets interrupted by a previously unnoticed woman. Jesus feels healing power leave Him, and He pauses to ask who it was that touched him. Because of the crowd that was swarming around Him, Jesus’ disciples incredulously ask Him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?” But Jesus is insistent. Someone had just been healed by His power, and Jesus was never content to simply leave it at that. He was interested in connection—in how God was working, or could work, in people’s lives. So, He wanted to know who had just been healed. When the healed person emerged, they couldn’t have been more the opposite of Jairus. It was a woman, desperate because of her health, and desperate because her pursuit of a cure had drained all the resources she had. For the past twelve years, she had a discharge of blood that no one could cure. In fact, the cures had only increased her suffering! But it wasn’t just her health and finances that had struggled. By virtue of her illness, she was both ceremonially unclean ()--which barred her from the Temple—and socially unclean, which barred her from normal contact with her family. Again, this makes her the very opposite of Jairus. She was broke, outcast, and severely unhealthy. She hadn’t been important to anyone for years. And, of course, her condition made her ability to seek out Jesus problematic. She was unclean, so she wasn’t supposed to be around people. If anyone found out, she could be prosecuted with the penalties of the Law of Moses. But as far as she was concerned, Jesus was her last chance. She’d heard some of the stories about Him, and so this was her last best hope. But she had to get close enough to touch Him, because she reasoned to herself, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well” (v28).

Notice that there’s that word again: “well.” It’s the same word that Jairus used. What does this mean? It means that the woman and Jairus are both asking for the same thing from Jesus, even though they are asking from vastly different perspectives and social standings. It also means that the woman--who has had her condition for twelve years--and Jairus’ daughter--who is twelve years old--need the same thing. This same need from Jesus binds the woman and the daughter together, which the use of the number 12 in both their stories reinforces. Although in different stages of life, the past twelve years for both of them had brought them to the same point of crisis and the same need from Jesus. They both needed deliverance, rescue, salvation, from what was destroying their lives.

Now, it’s easy to see Jairus at this point, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other, waiting and wondering what Jesus is doing. He sees Jesus talking to a woman who looks pretty unimportant, and he knows that every second that passes is another second in which his daughter edges closer to death. But Jesus seems to be in no hurry. He’s trying to make a connection with someone He healed. Eventually, the woman comes forward. Exactly like Jairus earlier, she falls down at Jesus’ feet. Now, however, she is confessing what Mark says is “the whole truth.” She’s telling Jesus everything, likely starting twelve years ago when she first got this condition, progressing through all the failed medical treatments, (maybe) alluding to the medical bills that had piled up and drained her finances, (maybe) mentioning how this condition had crippled her spiritual and family life, and even acknowledging how she’d broken the Law of Moses in order to get close enough to touch Him. But when she’s done confessing, here’s what Jesus says: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

We’re not told her reaction, but I can’t help but think that her “fear and trembling” with which she approached Jesus suddenly transformed into a mixture of relief and joy. There’s no condemning, scolding word from this powerful, popular rabbi. Instead, there’s only a word of assurance, restoration, and blessing. He calls her “daughter,” which is an interesting choice of words because her story comes in the midst of another story where a father is asking Jesus to heal his daughter. No doubt Mark does this on purpose to show that this woman, shoved to the margins of her world because of disease and poverty, stands in the same relationship to Jesus as the dying little girl does to Jairus. This woman, with her debilitating discharge, is just as valuable to Jesus as any daughter is to her father. So, Jesus lets her know that. He lets the crowd know it, and He lets Jairus, who is still watching anxiously, know it. This is why Jesus has stopped right in the middle of this urgent mission to Jairus’ daughter. Someone who is like a daughter to Him has come to Him for healing, deliverance, rescue. And who can say “no” to their daughter? Surely, Jairus would have understood that.

But Jesus doesn’t stop with this endearing word. He attributes her ability to receive healing to her faith, just as He’ll later tell Jairus to “only believe” for the healing of his daughter. Faith is what gives access to Jesus and His healing. And for the woman, from this healing comes peace. That’s the next thing Jesus tells her: “go in peace.” Ordinarily, we might pass this statement by as a common blessing in that day. But Mark doesn’t include it because it’s just a cliché. In fact, this is the only time Mark records this particular word for “peace” in the entire Gospel.[2] I think we should ask “why.” And, we should also ask what this word means surrounded as it is by words like “well/save/rescue” and “whole/healthy?”[3]

[1] For other examples, see , , //11.15-33.

[2] Schellenberg, R. S. “Peace.” Edited by Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP, 2013), 667. However, one could back up in their English translation to and see Jesus say to the storm, “Peace!” However, the Greek word is different than .

[3] For this insight, ibid.

Peace is Shalom Is Well-Being and Harmony

When a good Jew like Jesus used the word “peace,” he was using a word that shows up in the Jewish Scriptures as “shalom.” Shalom was a word with a grand vision of life under God’s care, and it basically meant “well-being, harmony, wholeness.”[1] In the OT, shalom usually referred to peace between people in terms of an absence of conflict or the more general idea of situations going well for people. So, for example, Joseph’s brothers were unable to speak “with shalom” to him when they noticed their father’s favoritism towards him (). And, God could promise Abraham that he would “go to his ancestors,” or die, “in shalom” (). Shalom touched on people’s community life, family life, bodily life, inner life, and religious life.[2] It wasn’t just a bland, empty greeting. It was a blessing, a wish, a pronouncement of total harmony and total good. But all Jews also understood that the highest good and greatest harmony came from God. There could be no true shalom without God’s peace, without an end to His anger towards your personal sin and without His restoration of well-being in all other parts of your life. So, when Jesus uses this word, this is what He means. He means for total harmony and well-being to come upon this person, but a harmony and well-being that finds its source in God. This is what He wants for the woman in . However, such peace always comes with blessings tailored to the needs of the moment, and this time is no exception. The practical blessings of the peace Jesus gives lie in the surrounding words of “well/save/rescue” and “whole/healthy.” His peace brings rescue, salvation and wholeness, with God at the center of it all. This woman believed that God was somehow working in Jesus, and so the peace from God that Jesus gave also overflowed in the blessings of her rescue and wholeness.

[1] Brueggemann, Peace, 15; John Goldingay, Old Testament Ethics, 80; TWOT, 930; CHALOT, 371.

[2] Goldingay, Ethics, 80.

Jesus’ Peace Put This Woman Back Where She Belonged

So, Jesus’ ministry not only brought about physical restoration to this woman. It restored to her God’s “shalom”—God’s peace. And by virtue of being restored to God’s peace, she was restored in every other way. Her spiritual poverty was restored because Jesus now declared her a “Daughter” in God’s family. Her physical impoverishment was restored because Jesus removed her sickness. Her social impoverishment was restored because now, due to Jesus’ healing, she was able to return to normal relations at home and in society. Her emotional poverty was restored because, in His healing, Jesus gave her back her dignity and sense of value. In short, the peace that Jesus gave this woman put her back where she belonged. It brought her back to where she should’ve been the whole time without the evils of disease and poverty, without the traces of human sin that left its mark by all the signs of brokenness in this story. Jesus gives us a peace, through Himself, that brings restoration and newness to all other parts of our lives. He gives us a peace that restores us to the way that we should be.

This, then, should give us a much more expansive view of the peace of Jesus. Typically, we associate peace with either an absence of conflict or an internal tranquility. I would insist, however, that the peace that Jesus provides is far bigger than the absence of conflict or the presence of internal tranquility. Those views are far too small for what Jesus is doing. The peace Jesus gives puts us back where we belong. Might it eliminate conflict and hostility in our lives? I think it definitely gives us the resources to do that, at least as far as it depends on us. Might it give us an inner sense of calm and stability? I think it most definitely will. But the peace of Christ goes far beyond either of these. The peace of Christ restores us to God and the community of God’s family. The peace of Christ restores and heals the wounds of our hearts. The peace of Christ sends us out with a new and better kind of health than we could have ever imagined before. No, it won’t automatically make all your problems go away, and I don’t mean to imply that it will. But it puts you in a position of wholeness—a position of harmony between you and God—that resources you to confront all your other problems. And, according to the emphasis of Mark’s story, it’s all accessed and kept by faith.

So, this begs a question for both the Christians and the non-Christians in the audience today. If you’re a non-Christian, the question is: “What’s preventing you from claiming this deeper, better peace that Jesus offers today?” The peace given to those like the woman in this story (and, by implication, to Jairus and his daughter) was only a foretaste of the peace that Jesus brings between us and God by His sacrificial death for our sin. Jesus’ death, and later His resurrection, are the sources of our peace with God. Jesus stood in our place and took the condemnation for our sin. The wrath and estrangement that existed between us and God was erased by His sacrifice, and it can be applied to you by faith, just as Jesus’ healing was applied to the woman by faith. I hope you’ll at least consider if this is the kind of peace you need today, the kind of peace that puts you back where you belong, starting with your relationship with the One who made you and emanating outwards to all other relationships and roles in your life.

For Christians, the question is: “Are you living in this peace today? Is it evident, by the fruit of your life, that you believe this peace is yours? Is this something you live out day by day? Is peace, both internally and externally, a regular quality of your life?” If you’re a Christian, Jesus is clear that this peace is yours. He has and continues to put you back where you belong by His peace. But are you aware of it? Are you cooperating with it? Or might you still be clinging to parts of your former sickness, your former brokenness, that hinder your experience of this peace? Might you still be living in the crippled condition of your past, clinging to remnants that dampen and disrupt the peace that Jesus gives? If you are, think of how silly it would have been for the woman in the story, after having been healed, to keep living like she hadn’t been? Think of how silly it would have been for her to still live in social isolation—to still remain separate from God’s family—to keep paying for useless doctor visits. In short, think of how silly it would have been for her to keep living like a sick person after she’d been healed. So, Christian, do you find yourself unable to know, feel, experience, or live out the peace of Christ? Ask yourself: “What areas of my life am I living as if I haven’t been made whole—put back where I belong—by Jesus? What parts of my life are still ruled by past infirmities and brokenness and not by the ever new, ever renewing, peace of Christ?” The peace of Christ has the power to restore and rejuvenate you spiritually, emotionally, socially, and even physically. He gives us His peace today in order to put us all back where we belong.

Conclusion

If you’re not a Christian, Jesus teaches that you haven’t yet received this kind of peace. You haven’t received the gift of His sacrifice for your sin and been restored to fellowship with God. We’d love to talk with you today about becoming a Christian. If, however, you just need prayer, or you need help renewing your experience of Christ’s peace, then we have prayer partners ready to help. Let’s stand and sing.